“‘Yes, my dear son,’ said the King, making use for the first time of that paternal expression; ‘I know as well as you do that this abbé is not well-disposed towards us; but can I take him away from a young woman whom he has educated, [89] and who requires somebody to confide in? Besides, she might choose worse; he is a man without personal ambition, religious and upright, in spite of his leaning to the House of Austria. It will be the Dauphin’s business to keep him within proper limits; and now I have warned you about what made me most uneasy I feel more satisfied, for I desire above all things that the peace of my family should never be troubled.’”
The interview closed to the mutual satisfaction of the King and his grandson, neither of them with the slightest idea of any more serious calamity than the quarrels at court between the Houses of Lorraine and Savoy being likely to interfere with the secure and magnificent tranquillity of their lives. But it wanted only eighteen years and a few months to the fall of the Bastille, and though the small-pox cut short the life of Louis XV. before the evil days, they were seen by many of his courtiers as old or older than himself.
But nothing would ever have induced him as long as he lived to allow the States-General to be summoned. He regarded them with an unchanging abhorrence which seems prophetic.
One evening, during his coucher, the conversation turning upon difficulties in the financial situation owing to the refusal of the parliaments of the different provinces to enregister certain taxes, a man highly placed in the King’s household remarked—
“You will see, sire, that all this will necessitate the assembly of the States-General”: whereupon Louis XV., abandoning the calm repose of his usual manner, seized him by the arm, exclaiming vehemently—
“Never repeat those words! I am not bloodthirsty, but if I had a brother and he were capable of offering such advice I would sacrifice him in twenty-four hours to the duration of the monarchy and the tranquillity of the kingdom.” [90]
It was remarked later that under Louis XIV. no one dared think or speak; under Louis XV. they thought but dared not speak; but under Louis XVI. every one thought and spoke whatever they chose without fear or respect.
FOOTNOTES:
[83] Not to be confounded with Fontenay-Trésigny. There are a number of places named Fontenay.
[84] “Mémoires de Louis XVIII.,” t. i, p. 17.